The discussion contained in this “Background” section relating to prior art arrangements is based to some degree on documents or devices which form public knowledge through their respective publication and use. Such should not be interpreted as a representation that such documents or devices in any way form part of the common general knowledge in the art.
The most successful mobile tracking system worldwide is the Qualcomm developed Omintracs™ service in North America, which is currently supporting in excess of 250,000 long distance trucks. Using existing geostationary satellites the service was launched in the early 1990's and later successfully exported to both Europe (Euteltracs) and Japan. A marine terminal version termed Boatracs™ was also launched a few years later and has now established market base of about 80,000 units.
In Fisheries vessel management, various satellite systems have been implemented for vessel tracking, of which the Inmarsat C™ system has been the most widely deployed. In excess 15,000 fishing vessels worldwide are currently tracked using various satellite systems and merchant ship owners are using satellite-tracking networks for fleet management purposes.
These satellite networks have demonstrated the capability of providing robust, and reliable communications with a uniform high quality of service over a wide area. This has been a significant commercial advantage over terrestrial radio competitive products even in developed countries such as the United States.
Historically satellite networks have been regarded as relatively expensive in terms of terminal equipment and airtime operational costs. Recent advances in technology have allowed dramatic reductions in both cost elements as seen with modern satellite hand phones.
Current Global Mobile Satellite Systems (GMSS) such as Inmarsat, use the L band spectrum, which is limited to about a 30 MHz spectrum around 1.5 GHz. This resource has to be shared with other regional satellite networks such as the Optus Australian Domestic system. This limited spectrum has resulted in relatively expensive airtime costs. The C band spectrum (4 to 6 GHz) has historically been used for managed and leased communication services, point-to-point and point-to-multipoint connections and provides cost effective satellite communications.